


Communication: A necessary Evil

by PeopleAreScary



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Fluff, Getting Together, Idiots in Love, Love Confessions, M/M, Nervous Tony Stark, Oblivious Loki (Marvel), Oblivious Tony Stark, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, seriously, their friends are done with this, they need help
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-22
Updated: 2020-03-22
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:00:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23264365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PeopleAreScary/pseuds/PeopleAreScary
Summary: He was going to do it. Definitely. Today was the day, no doubt, no hesitation, no fear! Okay, maybe a little fear. But why would a little bit of fear be able to stop him now? Him, the amazing, strong, brilliant, nervous wreck of a person, Tony Stark? It wasn’t like his hands were sweating and his pulse racing with a ferocity that couldn’t be healthy, right? Right?Tony Stark may or may not most definitely be madly in love with Loki. How could he not? Loki was amazing! So now he only had to confess his feelings. And talk to Loki about them. Totally easy, it wasn´t like Tony was a complete idiot in regards to communication or something...Fuck.
Relationships: Loki/Tony Stark
Comments: 12
Kudos: 97





	Communication: A necessary Evil

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cheshire_Soul](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cheshire_Soul/gifts).



> This fic is a birthday present to my wonderful friend Cheshire_Soul. Congratulations on surviving another year in this hellscape that is our reality :). 
> 
> This story is not betaed and any mistakes you find can be attributed to my total incompetence in regards to existing and I am sorry. And not a native speaker. Sorry again. 
> 
> Hope you don´t hate it!
> 
> P.s.: This is set in an alternate universe where Covid-19 does not exist so that dorks can be dorks and confess their love.

He was going to do it. Definitely. Today was the day, no doubt, no hesitation, no fear! Okay, maybe a little fear. But why would a little bit of fear be able to stop him now? Him, the amazing, strong, brilliant, nervous wreck of a person, Tony Stark? It wasn’t like his hands were sweating and his pulse racing with a ferocity that couldn’t be healthy, right? Right?

He wiped his hands on his jeans and tried to calm his heart by breathing slowly. His friend Pepper had said that meditation was very helpful and calming and healthy and Pepper tended to be right about that sort of thing.

He failed. At the calming bit, the rest hadn’t happened yet, he hadn’t been rejected and made a fool of himself, but he definitely would and then everything would be ruined and –

Right, calm and collected. That was how he should be.

He turned towards the door, catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror. He looked like what would happen if a can Red bull had been crossbred with eternal despair. It would have to do. ‘Love me at my worst’ and all that bullshit.

Nevertheless, his fingers shook a he tried to put on his jacket. He fumbled with the zipper for a bit and then decided that it wasn’t that could outside and he might as well just not close his jacket. And after all, it would only obscure the view on his least dirty t-shirt that definitely didn´t look like shit or make _him_ look like an idiot.

With one last swipe through his hair that brought it from purposefully messy to just plain messy, he made it out the door and down the stairs.

It was too cold to run around with an open jacket, but he still didn´t trust his fine motor skills and just tried to grit his teeth. It didn´t really succeed since they were clattering against each other but it was the thought that counts. His flat was located close to the campus where Loki lived in the dorms, so the way wouldn´t be too terribly long.

It was still long enough to increase his nervousness exponentially. It felt way longer than ever before. Maybe it wasn´t too late to turn back and just ignore that he had ever tried this. No harm done! He could just go back to being friends with Loki and spend time with him casually, just looking at him from the side when they were together and stare at his lips maybe a bit too long when he talked about all the things he was so passionate about and desperately hold himself back so that he wouldn´t –

Yes, that was why he had to do this. It couldn´t go on like that, all that pining was just pathetic. One day it would have gone wrong anyway. Maybe this way there could actually _be_ something between them. Apart from their close friendship and trust and holy fuck, Tony was so selfish in trying to demand something more from Loki. But then, he had confessed his feelings to Rhodey and Pepper who had said it´d be alright. After they had stopped laughing, that is. He still thought that he was more subtle than they said he was. After all, Loki hadn´t noticed anything. At least he was fairly certain of that. This defence hadn´t worked too well; instead of leading to them admitting his triumph and surrendering to his clearly superior intellect, it had led to a lot of head-shaking and exhausted mumbling (“How can the both of you be so stupid?” “Hey!”).

But it had still given him a bit of confidence. Enough confidence to get him t Loki´s door. A door that he´d have to knock on. Now, preferably. By lifting his hand and rapping his knuckles on the wood. Like he´d done dozens of times before. A simple movement, no reason to be nervous. On the count of three: One, two, three! He pounded his fist against the door. That may have been overkill. He froze in his tracks while footsteps on the other side of the door showed that his rather, um, _overenthusiastic_ method had worked. Who would have thought?

He was still contemplating how his stupidity would cost him everything and how Loki probably didn´t like him anymore if he was that harsh to one innocent little door and how he had probably scared him with the noise when the door opened and revealed Loki. Stupid, attractive Loki who was wearing pyjamas because it was Sunday morning and he had probably woken him up like the inconsiderate arsehole that he was.

“Tony?” Loki looked at him with an adorably confused expression. He had a pillow crease on his face. Tony had definitely woken him up. Fuck. And now he was staring. Double fuck.

He had to recover from this, so he did what he did best: ramble bullshit.

“Oh my god, I`m so sorry, I didn´t mean to wake you up. I´ll wait for you to get dressed! Or leave again, or wait outside so you can dress without me watching. Not that I don´t think you don´t look good or wouldn´t want to wa- I mean, you have nothing to be ashamed off and I´ll just leave again, if you want! I´m so sorry.” He finished with what he hoped was a charming grin that would anyone fall in love with him but feared made him look like a serial killer.

Loki, during the course of his monologue had reddened significantly. Maybe he was sick. That would make Tony even more of an arsehole for waking him up. Fuck.

He smiled once more – this time it most definitely looked like he was about to be hit by a train – and made to turn away.

“Wait!” He turned back to look at Loki who seemed to have grown a bit more frantic and looked at him with what was an almost pleading expression. “Please come in, I´ll just put on some clothes.”

“Don´t worry, you don´t need to get dressed for me!” What. The. Fuck, Tony? “I man… just, do whatever, I´ll wait.” He was quite certain the red in Loki´s cheeks was only challenged by the shade of his own face. With the only difference being that it made Loki look even more attractive and him like he was about to die of a heat-stroke. Dishevelled, sleepy Loki was definitely one Tony could get used to.

He stepped into the dorm. Loki´s room was tidier than Tony flat had been before he´d even moved in. It had confused him every time he had come there – which wasn´t terribly often, they tended to meet up at Tony´s flat if they wanted to stay in since it had more space – and made him think that Loki was probably a secret mage or something like that. He sat down on the edge of Loki´s bed before he could think better of it and tried to find something to look at that wasn´t Loki and failed.

So he stared at Loki. Loki, who had turned his back to him and pulled off his shirt to put something else on. Tony felt his hands fist the sheets and his face heat up even more. Fuck. _Come on, just think of naked grandmothers and dead puppies, don´t think of Loki´s torso and slim muscle and pale, smooth skin and – Fuck!_

He heard some weird strangled sound, causing Loki to turn around and look at him. And him to look at his chest. Holy fuck, that chest. Beautiful.

“Are you all right?”

“Huh?” _Wonderful, very eloquent._ But why was Loki looking at him? And then his brain finally managed to catch on and conclude that the sound must have come from him. “Oh. Yes, yes of course. Just, um, a cough.”

Loki furrowed his brows but turned back around – No, don´t! – and put on a hoodie. Then he very possibly caused Tony to have a minor heart-attack by sliding off his pyjama pants and replace them with a pair of sweatpants. Then he turned back around again and sat down next Tony on the bed.

Silence came over the room. It was the kind of silence that doesn´t quite know why it is there and wants to leave again because it felt uncomfortable, just like everyone else who had to feel it. Tony didn´t quite know what was supposed to happen now (this had been way easier in his imagination) or why Loki looked at him expectantly. He just looked back.

Eventually, Loki spoke through the silence – it was very glad to leave again and fled to compliment a darkness elsewhere and turn it into the comfortable silence of an early morning – and tore Tony out of his frantic thoughts. “Why did you come by again?”

“I… I wanted to tell you something.”

The silence was slowly being dragged into the room.

“And what would that be?”, prompted Loki slowly. He had really pretty eyes. Eyes to get lost in. Tony had noticed that quite a few times in the past. Usually right before getting lost in them.

But he couldn´t do that right now. He had something to say and Loki was waiting with his hair hanging into his face in the most beautiful way. Loki was waiting and Tony wasn´t going to disappoint him. He had thought about his before, he had a plan, nothing could go wrong. He was great t talking!

“Uhm.” He was hopeless, useless, complete garbage.

Loki raised his brows. “I don´t mean to be overly critical, but I may need a little bit more than an ‘Uhm’ if you want to talk to me.”

Tony took a deep breath. Right. Communication. Something he had been great t avoiding since he had learned to talk. Something that was necessary to solve this problem. Nothing to lose now.

“So, we have been friends now for a while and I just wanted to say before anything else that I really appreciate all the time we´ve spent together and all the bullshit from me you´ve put up with. That´s impressive, ´cause, you know, I´m an idiot and all that. And if you don´t like what I´ll say now I just hope that maybe we could stay friends, just if you want. I don´t want to pressure you to do anything, of course, but I just wanted to say that maybe IthinkI´minlovewithyoupleasedon´thateme!”

The silence was pulled back into the room with a force that could have sent 17.557 rockets into space.

Tony didn´t like it. He started to fiddle with the edge of his shirt and frantically avoided Loki´s eyes so he wouldn´t have to look at the rejection that would surely be clear on his face.

“… what?” Loki´s voice sounded strangely vulnerable and almost scared.

Tony didn´t want to scare Loki, so he tried not to leave any room for fear to grow. He filled the space with even more rambling. “You don´t have to take me up on this, I mean, obviously wouldn´t be able to force you to date, not that I´d want to. And I wouldn´t even have told you, ´cause I really like our friendship but I just couldn´t keep it secret anymore because every time we meet you are so smart and funny and beautiful and I can´t help but fall in love with you but I also know that you´re way too good for me and-”

The rest of his no doubt poetic explanations never made it out of his mouth. Mainly because it was preoccupied. By Loki. Kissing him. What?

His surprise was so pronounced that he completely forgot to kiss Loki back. Loki, wonderful Loki, with his soft lips who was now looking at him uncertainly, regret slowly dawning on his face. That was not okay, especially if contrasted by the joy that was rapidly spreading on Tony´s face.

“You like me, too?”

“Yes, you idiot!” Loki´s facial expression had very quickly switched to exasperation. It was one Tony was more familiar with, on all of his friends. He could work with that. Right now, he was happy and excited and full of love because the world was a wonderful place after all.

“So, can we date? And do more of that kissing stuff?”

Loki huffed (they were finally getting back on familiar territory again) and nodded. “Don´t make me regret this already.”

“Never!” Tony´s grin in that moment could have been a large step the development of reusable energy sources, had they thought of doing anything else than being happy. It didn´t really matter anyway, since he was going to grin like that a lot in the coming months, and years, and his life.

But right then and there, all that mattered was that Tony could lean forward and kiss Loki and Loki would kiss back and then maybe, definitely Tony would take a closer look at that chest again.

He was so happy that a bit later on, when they revealed their relationship-update to their friends, he was only mildly annoyed when their reaction consisted mainly of a shouted “Finally!” on Rhodey´s part.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope this may have helped you kill a bit of time/ find joy in these complicated times. Especially if you´re spending you birthday in quarantine.  
> May the social isolation be over soon and your lives not be affected too badly! 
> 
> At least it can´t get any worse, am I right? *laughs nervously*


End file.
